In the World of the High Tech Redneck, the Graybeard is the old guy who earned his gray by making all the mistakes, and tries to keep the young 'uns from repeating them. Silicon Graybeard is my term for an old hardware engineer; a circuit designer. The focus of this blog is on doing things, from radio to home machine shops and making all kinds of things, along with comments from a retired radio engineer running from tech or science news to economics; from firearms to the world at large.

Thursday, July 14, 2016

And The Stupid Just Keeps on Coming

I didn't watch any of the president's talk at the Dallas memorial service the other day. I knew it was going to be filled with stupid, and the clips I heard were actually worse than I expected. It was embarrassingly bad, so predictable in its messaging and tone that it could have been any hack Hollywood writer trying to make up what a doctrinaire Marxist would say. It's hard to come up with the kind of consistent, day after day stupidity that he does, but he's fully automatic:

As soon as anything triggers him, he goes into an automatic gun control rant. Any incident whatsoever gets the same response. Has anyone else noticed how the Orlando Pulse night club shooting went from being reporting by everyone as the "worst terrorist attack since 9/11" to the "worst mass shooting in US history"? I noticed it being reported that way on Fox News some weeks ago and it bothered me.

Of course, the difference is that if it's a terrorist attack, Obama may have to blame actual terrorists. Actual Islamic State terrorists. God knows he's incapable of doing that. If it's a mass shooting, he can blame the guns, as always.

Even last week, when we have testimony from the Dallas chief of police that the killer told them he specifically wanted to kill white cops, as clear an example of race-based terrorism as you get, Obama went into full auto mode, reprising what I think is his most idiotic argument of all, that it's "easier for a teenager to buy a Glock than get his hands on a book". In what country? On what planet? In the US, it's a federal felony; a teenager can't walk into the local gun shop and buy any firearm. Do you mean they commit the felony and buy a stolen gun off the street? Oh, that's right, you guys don't have the time to enforce those laws, so you want to create some new laws you can not bother to enforce.

Donald Sensing at Sense of Events does a great satirical piece on this preposterous lie, which I'm going to copy mercilessly here.
Outraged at this unacceptable situation, Apple Computer CEO Tim Cook
announced that beginning Aug. 1, all teenagers and adult customers of
Apple computers and devices will be able to buy Apple products as easily
as they can buy a Glock pistol.

"It will be very simple," said Cook after touring the Glock factory
in Smyrna, Ga. "From now on Apple products will be sold to teenagers
using the same criteria used for them to buy a Glock. It's only fair and
I am sure the president will agree."

Apple's press release summarized the new purchasing rules as follows:

No straw purchases: Any person who attempts to solicit, persuade,
encourage, or entice any Apple dealer to transfer or otherwise convey an
Apple product other than to the actual buyer, as well as any other
person who willfully and intentionally aids or abets such person, shall
be not be allowed.

Furnishing a computer to a Minor - No Apple dealer will sell or give
an Apple product to a person under 18 years old. All purchasers must
sign a statement before the sale that they will not sell, give or
otherwise transfer the computer to a Minor.

Apple dealers must complete and have the buyer sign Apple Form 4473, Computer Transaction Record.

The dealer must verify the identity of the buyer through a government–issued photo identification.

No Apple product will be sold to any person who is not a legal
resident of the state where the sale occurs. Purchases may be made
online but the product must be personally picked up by the buyer in the
buyer's legal state of residence. Before transferring the computer to
the buyer, all procedures stated herein must be in compliance.

No Apple device may be sold to any person who has previously been
convicted of or previously entered a guilty plea to one or more of the
offenses of murder, armed robbery, kidnapping, rape, aggravated child
molestation, aggravated sodomy, aggravated sexual battery, or any felony
involving the use or possession of a computer and who shall have on or
within arm's reach of his or her person a computer during the commission
of, or the attempt to commit:

Any crime against or involving the person of another;The unlawful entry into a building or vehicle;

A theft from a building or theft of a vehicle;

Any crime involving the possession, manufacture, delivery,
distribution, dispensing, administering, selling, or possession with
intent to distribute any controlled substance

Any crime involving the trafficking of cocaine, marijuana, or illegal drugs.

The dealer must contact local law-enforcement offices (LEO) to
ensure that the buyer is not disqualified from buying or possessing a
computer. A dealer may not transfer a computer unless the dealer
receives a “proceed” response, or three business days have elapsed since
the dealer contacted the law enforcement office. A dealer may not sell a
device when a “denied” response is issued by LEO.

"These are only common-sense measures," Mr. Cook said, "and they will
make sure that every teenager, especially in Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore
and other Democrat-administered cities in America, will find it no
more difficult to get their hands on an iPhone or MacBook Pro than on a
Glock."

Look on the bright side: the ruling elite are now so incompetent matching demagoguery to existing prejudice it's easy to tell these are lies. Just 70 years ago, similarly promoted lies like "capitalist speculative middlemen in commerce are ruining the economy" were actually believed in China, Russia, and Germany.

That's particularly ironic, as Bernie is of the religious sect which has historically specialized in being capitalist speculative middlemen.

They manage the just-in-time buffer and queue of objects in commerce. Very, very important job. Otherwise your breakfast cereal would not be available from General Mills every week of the year at an averaged price, trickling out of grain storage silos, but instead would be boom/bust with the wheat harvests a few times a year.

Perhaps Mr. Trump can explain, with a Verilog model we can all simulate, exactly who protectionism at the border benefits.

Many conservatives still believe that. They want a junior version of the iron curtain, named "protectionism". Special taxes on imports and exports. Targeted taxes on objects in commerce, like cars, medicines, and solar panels, which "foreigners" manufacture more cheaply than "natives". Much like the tax on cotton exports to England which sparked the US war of Northern aggression, which is to say, the more-aggressive collection attempt for those taxes.

I think (my conspiracy theory) that the powers that be know there is an economic shit storm coming and very likely a social crap storm as well. They don't want Americans to have weapons when TSHTF and especially if we correctly conclude that it was our politicians (federal state and local) who sold us down the river. For that reason they must have gun control. It is impossible to take over a country where the citizens are all armed.

Well, your theory fits observable facts. They've been gradually disarming America since the 1930s, and I think it pisses them off that they can't "close the deal". It's not like there aren't dozens of quotes you can find online where some assclown politician is saying they would order door to door confiscation if they thought they could get away with it.

(Disclaimer and confessional: I'm ignorant of gun control laws before the NFA of 1934).

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Retired radio engineer, follower of Christ, RF designer, mentor. Radio ham, home shop machinist, lapidary, silversmith, roadie cyclist, learning to be a rifleman, and home defender, - a guy with too many interests to keep track of.

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